The software from DonationCoder.com is free for individual use. The reason we require people to download a license key from us is to get them to take a look at our website and think about whether they might be willing to make a donation to this site. If you run a business with more than 4 employees see our commercial site-license page.

In order to encourage people to really consider making a donation, we have adopted a somewhat unusual policy for people who do not donate:

The free license key generated here will remove the reminder nag from the program for 6 months.After 6 months the reminder will come back and you must return to this page to generate a new license key which will last for another 6 months.After 1 year from your initial signup you can return to this page for a permanent non-expiring license key.You don't have to make a decision right now, but for those who do choose to donate now we have a whole bunch of extra special benefits.

If you're not ready to make a donation at this time, but want to download a free key for one of the programs on this site, you'll first need to sign up at our forum, or log in if you already have an account.

Everything on our site is designed to work with your forum login, and we hope you'll find it a useful place to talk about software ideas and discoveries (signing up will only take a minute, you don't have to donate, and we promise not to send you spam or share your email address or login information with other sites).

There are too many free apps out there for someone to jump through all these hoops then this endless circle of click here and there to get license key. Count me out

Hmm, I don't really know what you are talking about. After entering my DC license key one time, most downloads just work. Period. And while DC is a great place to find apps and programs not found elsewhere, I like it more so for the sense of community and mutual coding assistance and feedback provided by the regular posters. To that end, it were necessary to click here and there to get a license key, I wouldn't mind.

There are too many free apps out there for someone to jump through all these hoops then this endless circle of click here and there to get license key. Count me out

The majority of those "free" apps you mention are either poorly coded or loaded with spyware, adware or malware. All the apps on DoCo are of high quality and DO NOT have spyware, adware or any kind of malware.

A lot of those free apps your talking about don't have any support base, if you have a problem, your on your own. Here at DoCo there's a very good support base not only from the user base, but also the coders of these apps.

If you make a nice donation you can have a key code that unlocks all the apps. Nowhere else have I seen this. I've been so impressed with the apps, support and updates that I've made 4 or 5 donations already.

Well, the way I see it, you have a few choices if you really like the software and want to continue using it.

1. Don't bother getting a license key and just put up with the nag messages. (it won't stop working just because you don't have a key)

2. Get a free 6 month license key by registering on the forum and then generating one (you are halfway there, since you have already signed up...now you just need to go get that key)

3. Make a donation to show the developer some appreciation for all the hard work he has put into that application. In other words, just like buying shareware, except you get to decide how much it will cost. The bonus is that the license won't ever expire and you can use it for ALL the software on the site that uses a key. It's a fantastic "buy one and get everything else free" deal, because you get to set the price of that one. Not too many software companies do incredible things like that!

4. Contact mouser privately, and tell him you are either too broke to donate or genuinely opposed to supporting the development of the software that you use, and he will likely just give you a permanent key.

Now what other software company offers you this many choices and is so willing to bend over backwards to make you happy?

MAYBE what he really was saying is that under certain circumstances it is too difficult for a new visitor to navigate the site.

That may be the case. Although it might have been nice if he/she actually said that.

And even if that was what the person meant, there are still better ways to covey that message than saying "There are too many free apps out there for someone to jump through all these hoops then this endless circle of click here and there to get license key." and "Count me out." That just strikes me as more of that 'entitlement mindset' you see everywhere on the web these days.

DonationCoder is a community - not just a 'free software' site. Something that should be fairly obvious to anybody who does more than just take a quick scan to see what's available for free here.

The license key stuff is a bit annoying and confusing, there is no denying that. We only ask that you put up with it until we find a better way to do things that encourages donations while keeping the software free.

I've said it before, i'll say it again -- as the person who created the license key procedure -- i completely understand the frustration and the desire to post and complain about it. I am one of those people with very short frustration fuse and i'm guessing that i would be one of those people posting and complaining if i visited a site like DonationCoder and just wanted to download and use some software.

So, i have nothing but sympathy for those who get frustrated by DC procedure for license keys.

I just hope people will understand after some thought that we are doing our best to balance some tricky issues that have no easy answers. As long as we are committed both to raising money from end user donations and keeping our software free, we must accept that things are going to be a little wonky (see this article about DonationCoder for why).

MAYBE what he really was saying is that under certain circumstances it is too difficult for a new visitor to navigate the site.

I think what he was saying is that it's not easy enough for file leeches....

The way it is now the dc software can't be downloaded and activated without visiting this site. I think that is the point. The software can't be hot linked for activation. It does not bother me any, but that's me.

Just to clarify, DC software tends to be mirrored and available for download on other sites -- it's just that you need to visit our site for a license key, which is by design -- we want people to visit DC and learn a little about us if they are going to be using our software.

If at any point someone finds that one of my miscellaneous small programs/batch files is of high quality, please tell me and I'll fix it. At no point have I ever tried to make any of my apps high quality, and I'll vigorously defend my right to not do so!

Only 1 in 10 work without crashing

LOL! Well, if it works as advertised without crashing your computer, munging files/drives or any other bad outcome, then it's high quality. Simple is better, which is why everyone says "KISS" (Keep It Simple, Stupid).